Part 1 (2/2)

_Voice of a Poet_ ”The fire of the sunset Is remembered at midnight, But forgotten at dawn.

While the old stars set, Let us speak of their glory Before they are gone.”

H.A.

SILENCES[1]

You who have known my city for a day And heard the music of her steepled bells, Then laughed, and pa.s.sed along your vagrant way, Carrying only what the city tells To those who listen solely with their ears; You know St. Matthew's swinging harmonies, And old St. Michael's tale of golden years Far less like bells than chanted memories.

Yet there is something wanting in the song Of lyric youth with voice unschooled by pain.

And there are breathing stillnesses that throng Dim corners, and that only stir again When bells are dumb. Not even bronze that beats Our heart-throbs back can tell of old defeats.

But you who take the city for your own, Come with me when the night flows deep and kind Along these narrow ways of troubled stone, And floods the wide savannas of the mind With tides that cool the fever of the day: One with the dark, companioned by the stars, We'll seek St. Philip's, nebulous and gray, Holding its throbbing beacon to the bars, A prisoned spirit vibrant in the stone That knew its empire of forgotten things.

Then will the city know you for her own, And feel you meet to share her sufferings; While down a swirl of poignant memories, Herself shall find you in her silences.

Once coaches waited row on s.h.i.+ning row Before this door; and where the thirsty street Drank the deep shadow of the portico The Sunday hush was stirred by happy feet, Low greetings, and the rustle of brocade, The organ throb, and warmth of sunny eyes That flashed and smiled beneath a bonnet shade; Life with the lure of all its swift disguise.

Then from the soaring lyric of the spire, Like the composite voice of all the town, The bells burst swiftly into singing fire That wrapped the building, and which showered down Bright cadences to flash along the ways Loud with the splendid gladness of the days.

War took the city, and the laughter died From lips that pain had kissed. One after one All lovely things went down the sanguine tide, While death made moaning answer to the gun.

Then, as a golden voice dies in the throat Of one who lives, but whose glad heart is dead, The bells were taken; and a sterner note Rang from their bronze where Lee and Jackson led.

The rhythmic seasons chill and burn and chill, Cooling old angers, warming hearts again.

The ancient building quickens to the thrill Of lilting feet; but only singing rain Flutters old echoes in the portico; Those who can still remember love it so.

D.H.

[1] See the note on the chimes at back of book.

PRESENCES

Despise the garish presences that flaunt The obvious possession of today, To wear with me the spectacles that haunt The optic sense with wraiths of yesterday-- These cobbled sh.o.r.es through which the traffic streams Have been the stage-set of successive towns, Where coffined actors postured out their dreams, And harlot Folly changed her thousand gowns.

This corner-shop was Bull's Head Tavern, When names now dead on marble lived in clay; Its rooms were like a sanded cavern, Where candles made a sallow jest of day, And drovers' boots came grinding like a quern, While merchants drank their steaming cups of ”tay.”

Here pock-marked Black Beard covenanted Bonnet To slit the Dons' throats at St. Augustine, And bussed light ladies, unknown to this sonnet, Whose names, no doubt, would rime with Magdalene.

And English parsons, who had lost their fames, Sat tippling wine as spicy as their joke, Larding bald texts with bets on c.o.c.king mains, And whiffing pipes churchwardens used to smoke.

Here _macaronis_, hands a-droop with laces, Dealt knave to knave in _picquet_ or _ecarte_, In coats no whit less scarlet than their faces, While bullies hiccuped healths to King and Party, And Yankee slavers, in from Barbadoes, Drove flinty bargains with keen Huguenots.

Then Meeting Street first knew St. Michael's steeple, When redcoats marched with royal drums a-banging, Or merchants stopped gowned tutors to inquire Why school let out to see a pirate hanging; And gentlemen took supper in the street, When candle-s.h.i.+ne from tables guled the dark, While others pa.s.sing by would be discreet And take the farther side without remark, Pausing perhaps to snuff the balmy savor Of turtle-soup mulled with the bay-leaves' flavor: These walls beheld them, and these lingering trees That still preempt the middle of the gutter; They are the backdrops for old comedies-- If leaves were tongues--what stories they might utter!

H.A.

<script>